Introduction
Today we are going to delve into SEO, particularly On-page SEO to find out what Google wants to see from your webpages in order to rank them.
On the last blog/podcast; What is SEO? Demystifying SEO in 2021, we talked about what SEO is, which is basically just following Google’s webmaster guidelines for improving your website.
And how these guidelines can be categorised into 3 parts;
- On-page SEO – What can be done on your webpages.
- Off-page SEO – What can be done off of your webpages.
- and Technical SEO – What can be done inside your webpages.
This blog is meant for people that are curious about how Google works or new to SEO and want an easy-to-understand explanation.
Therefore rest assured knowing that you will not be bombarded with highly technical words.
On-page SEO starts from search engine results pages
The first entry point to your website from a search engine (Google, Bing, etc) is through its Search Engine results pages (SERP). This is where your website will be displayed as a Title, Description, and Url.
You are able to show more information than this on a SERP but for this discussion, we will be focusing on these three, which show by default.
Title
A title is the first visual point a user sees when looking at results on a SERP. 70% of people decide on whether to click on a website based on a title.
Therefore, your title has to be compelling enough for a person to want to click through to your website. It also has to contain a keyword to give Google an idea of what the webpage is likely to be about.
Meta Description
A description is there to give more information about the title and to summarise what the page is about.
Just like with your title, your description has to be interesting enough for a person to want to click through to the website.
Google does not really look at the keywords within a description to make sense of a webpage, therefore it’s okay to not have a keyword in there.
Url
Both Google and people use the URL to get an indication of what the website will be about, in addition to the Title and Description.
Because of this, your URLs should be short, descriptive, and contain the desired keyword within them to make it easy on the user and Google.
On-page SEO then continues on your webpage
So when a user lands on your webpage, there are a few things your webpage needs to have in order to be favoured by Google.
1. The Content on your webpage
Your website needs to have content (text, images, video, etc) that answers the user’s query as promised by the title and description on the SERPs.
Google is more advanced in understanding text than other forms of content, therefore you should make sure that most of your content is text.
The text should be broken into sections by the use of relevant headings (<h1>,<h2>,<h3>; most content management systems like WordPress do this for you in the editor), relevant images, videos, etc.
This makes it easier for your users to read your content and get a better understanding of the message you are conveying.
Google uses headings especially <h1>, text, and image alt tags as signals to help it make sense of a webpage.
Therefore, you should put your desired keyword within the <h1>, text, and image alt tag. Because Google can’t see images it uses an image alt tag, which is an HTML code that lets you describe your image to it.
2. The Links
There are two types of links Google looks at when it goes on your webpage; Internal links and external links.
Internal links are links that lead to other webpages within your website. These links help users and Google discover more of your website and should link to relevant pages that offer more information on what your webpage is talking about.
External links are links that lead to other websites and should also lead to relevant content on that website.
You should make sure that your links lead to working webpages instead of none functioning pages (error or 404 pages), in order to provide a good user experience.
3. Website Architecture
Your website should be easy for both users and Google to navigate. You can do this by making the important pages accessible across the whole site through top/bottom menu links (Home, services, blog, news, etc).
Conclusion
On-page SEO looks at your titles, descriptions, and URLs on the SERP. As well as your webpage content, website architecture, and links within your webpage content.
These help Google and users understand what your webpage is about and if it will answer a users query.
